reply to post by jmdewey60
where they had been happily living for thousands of years
I want to address this, as it highlights how often you exaggerate, often in very course and dark ways.
Jews hardly lived "happily", anymore than you can say Palestinians live happily under the watchful eye of IDF occupation in the west bank.
Bernard Lewis says
Generally, the Jewish people were allowed to practice their religion and live according to the laws and scriptures of their community.
Furthermore, the restrictions to which they were subject were social and symbolic rather than tangible and practical in character. That is to say,
these regulations served to define the relationship between the two communities, and not to oppress the Jewish population
Link
And I'm sure you would agree with this highly optimistic assessment.
These 'restrictions' of a 'symbolic' but somehow "not tangible or practical" nature, to which the two communities were defined, apparently weren't
"oppressive".
Ok, so the extra taxation of Jews, isn't discriminatory, or a tangible and practical and oppressive measure against the Jewish community?? This is how
sick and politically warped some commentators on this subject can be.
They would blow out of proportion any extra taxes imposed by Israel on Arab citizens, and they would be vilified ad hoc for it. But when Muslims have
from the beginning forced taxes on Jews above that of other citizens of the state, it's not oppressive, even though it is, and has a tangible and
practical effect by reducing their quality of living. Hence, most Jews were extremely poor, as the late ghetto communities in Yemen, Egypt and Morocco
show.
Jews were also not allowed to have any public demonstration of their religion. Is that "fair"? Can one REALLY be happy if he knows he knows he's a 2nd
class citizen of the state, who isn't allowed to go into public areas and pronounce his belief in the words, "shema Yisrael..."?? These are all
degrading measures. And that's the point. The positive turn people create on what Muslim governments subjected Dhimmis to - both Jews and Christians -
is deplorable.
In some places, Jews were forced to wear yellow socks and other clownish colors, and even a little 'bell', like what a donkey would have around it's
neck. Every time a Jew walked he had the pleasure of producing a little bell' ringing at his side, giving Muslims even greater pleasure at the
hilarity of such a spectacle. In other places, they were forced to always walk by a Muslim on his left, to represent the Satan.
During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, beginning in the 9th century, Islamic Spain was more tolerant towards Jews.[19] The 11th
century, however, saw several Muslim pogroms against Jews; notably those that occurred in Cordoba in 1011 and in Granada in 1066.[20] In the 1066
Granada massacre, the first large pogrom on European soil, a Muslim mob crucified the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred about 4,000
Jews[21] In 1033 about 6,000 Jews were killed in Fez, Morocco by Muslim mobs.[22][23] Mobs in Fez murdered thousands of Jews in 1276,[24] and again,
leaving only 11 alive, in 1465
Link
Oh happy days! How nice it was to live under Muslims.
Yes, it was far worse under Christiandom; but it was worse in the sense of being the greater of two evils.
What was always constant was the life-sucking jizya tax which always lowered a Jews standard of living relative to his Muslim neighbors. They were
also generally barred from positions of government, though, there were those very very few in number who managed to make a fortune in trade or
banking, and so were associated with governments. But they were a miniscule minority. They were not indicative of the overall state of Sephardic
Jewry. And even they paid a hefty jizya tax.
My point? It was never nice living in Muslim lands. Up until the modern era, just before 1948, Jews still paid the jizya. They were still highly
discriminated against and subject to periodic libels, whether in the form of mass riots, as happened in Safed in 1834, hundreds were killed, many
Jewish women were raped, and essentially every Jewish home was looted, or mass looting.
And I can mention many more of these incidents, JMD. It was NOT nice living under Muslims; it wasn't fair, it wasn't equal. It was precisely the
opposite of what we extoll here in liberal democracies: complete equality and liberty between citizens.
edit on 9-11-2012 by dontreally
because: (no reason given)